Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi
THOUGH not surprisingly, India one again met a humiliating failure at the United Nations as, despite its all-round negative efforts, Kashmir was included in the agenda of the annual session of the General Assembly (UNGA) as an unresolved dispute. The Prime Minister Imran Khan in his virtual speech to the 75th UN General Assembly (September 25), highlighted the cause of the Kashmiri people and called for international action to end India’s massive human rights violations and peaceful settlement of Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UNSC resolutions. In addition, India’s Ministry of External Affairs was highly disappointed on the rejection of its objections raised at the Shangri Cooperation Organisation vis-à-vis Pakistan’s new political map.
Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Munir Akram, strongly solicited his arguments based on the objectivity of the Kashmir issue. ‘The agenda of the Security Council is set out in accordance with established rules and regulations and cannot be changed without consensus. A member state cannot change the agenda unilaterally. “We hope that the General Assembly will uphold the right to self-determination and that human rights organizations will seek access to investigate India’s violations,” Munir Akram said. “Apart from the Kashmir issue, Pakistan will work with other Muslim countries that condemn Islamophobia and protect Islamic places of worship,” he said.
Summary statement by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres of matters of which the Security Council was supposed to be seized. All 69 agenda items were identified “as matters of which Security Council was currently seized,” including “The India-Pakistan Question.” The removal can take place if the conflict has been resolved or there is a consensus among all 15 members of the Council to remove a particular agenda item. In the case of Kashmir, none of these conditions applies. As we know the presence of the United Nations Military Observer Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) in Srinagar, the capital of Jammu and Kashmir, affirms that the Kashmir dispute is a matter seized by the Council. As for the UN expected role towards peace, the EU’s diplomat recently said, “There is no need to question that multilateralism and international law works […] for all of us”, he said, adding that side-lining the rules-based order would prompt a return to chaos and violence.
In another significant development, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in its recently held meeting on NSAs, rejected India’s objections over Pakistan newly introduced political map. In its reply, Pakistan highlighted that India under international law had no legal rights to claim the internationally recognized disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir as part of India. Pakistan also categorically rejected Indian assertions that the newly released political map included any part of Indian territory.Pakistan informed the SCO Secretariat that India’s illegal and unilateral actions in Indian Illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir were in grave violation of the UN Charter and UN Security Council resolutions on the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. Furthermore, Pakistan emphasized that the new political map represented Pakistan’s rights and the aspirations of the Kashmiri people. It emphasized that Pakistan retains an abiding commitment to seeking a resolution of Jammu and Kashmir dispute through a free and impartial plebiscite in accordance with the UN Charter and the UNSC Resolutions.
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi recently asserted that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the flagship project of the One Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) supplements the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) vision of regional connectivity and economic integration. The fact remains that what may come at the part of the Indian government to suppress the sizzling Kash mir issue, the Kashmir crisis is gaining global attention. Against this background, what is required to be learnt by the Indians today: while the abrogation of Kashmir’s autonomy is a BJP ideological project, part of the responsibility falls as well on other political parties—such as those in the United Progressive Alliance [a centre-left coalition headed by the Congress party], which was in office for a decade before this government. If they had focused on the Kashmir crisis earlier and achieved a resolution, India would not be facing this situation now.
India’s traditional argument that Kashmir is its internal matter has long away lost its credibility in that such claims of sovereignty by a ruling elite cannot justify actions that inflict endless suffering on their citizens. India no more holds a rightful claim to govern the occupied Kashmir peacefully since constitutionally Kashmiris do not embrace the Indian governance—clearly vindicated via a yearlong shutdown in the Vale. The international community must also be consistent in asserting that there is a bottom line that protects human rights—whether of religious minorities in Pakistan or Bangladesh or India or of the Rohingyas in Myanmar. And yet China’s sovereignty issue over the Eastern Ladakh, coupled with Pakistan’s acknowledgement of China’s position in its new map, it is likely to foster China-Pakistan diplomatic standing on the Kashmir issue in the international fora. India must understand the truth of the global law that clearly says that occupation is no more an ingredient of de jure sovereignty of a state. India’s any unilateral move in terms of expropriation and annexation of the Kashmir territory via Reorganisation Order 2020 holds no legal standing.
Despite the best efforts of the imperialist forces to silence and subdue them, the Kashmiris have been fighting for self-determination for hundreds of years. Today, imperial efforts to control the valley continue albeit quite ironically in the garb of nationalism. India’s decision to revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s special status thus is nothing other than yet another act of shameless imperialist aggression. At worst, August 5, 2019, will be remembered by future generations as just another chapter in Kashmir’s long history of imperial oppression. At best, this latest attack on the dignity of a long-suffering people will mark the beginning of an era of unprecedented resistance and struggle towards freedom for the Kashmiris. Being the oldest unresolved international conflict,” Kashmir dispute enters its decisive phase and poses a huge challenge to the maintenance of regional as well as global peace and security in addition to being a big question mark vis-a-vis the effectiveness, sincerity and efficacy of United Nations.
—The writer, an independent ‘IR’ researcher-cum-international law analyst based in Pakistan, is member of European Consortium for Political Research Standing Group on IR, Critical Peace & Conflict Studies, also a member of Washington Foreign Law Society and European Society of International Law.
